The Last of the Cathars: The Dissidence of ‘Cathar’ Heresy in the Early 14th Century Languedoc

'Bernard Delicieux confronts members of the Inquisition' - Jean-Paul Laurens, 1887.

Introduction:

During the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the form of dualist heresy which later became known as ‘Catharism’ remained very much alive in the south of France despite the violent attempts of the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229), and the subsequent Inquisition, to eradicate it. Regardless of what the Crusade achieved in terms of restructuring political power in the Languedoc, it had been unable to crush the heresy, and so ‘Catharism’ endured, seemingly no more or less of a threat to religious orthodoxy than it had ever been.^[1] 

The beginning of the fourteenth century saw a renewed increase in inquisitorial activity in the region, most notably by Dominican inquisitors, Bernard Gui (1261-1331) and Geoffroy D’Ablis, who arrested the entire population of Montaillou in 1308.^[2] 

Using source material from the records of both Bernard Gui and Jacques Fournier (c.1285-1342), as well as more recent scholarly interpretations, this article aims to discuss the dissident nature of Cathar heresy in the early fourteenth century, and whether, even after a century of crusade and inquisition, it posed any real danger to religious orthodoxy. Focusing on two illustrative case studies, I will argue that while ‘Catharism’ in this period posed no real threat to the wider Catholic community, its very existence was perceived as a challenge to episcopal authority. 

Inquisitorial Records:

Inquisitorial records are essentially the sole surviving sources which provide us with insight into the lives of Medieval heretics.^[3] As such, many of the concepts we have of the Cathars come from ideas that were pre-conceived in the inquisitor’s mind. John Arnold names three areas of inquisitorial assumption, but it is the first that has been particularly influential throughout Cathar historiography.

This is the assumption that ‘Catharism’ was an organised sect or ‘counter-Church’.^[4] There is no doubt that heresy thrived in the Languedoc, but whether that heresy was fuelled by a consistent set of doctrinal beliefs and practices is another question. John Arnold argues that there was no sharp division between orthodox and Cathar beliefs and practices.^[5] It’s important to make the distinction between the Cathar elite, called perfecti or ‘good men’, and the credentes, or mass of ordinary believers.^[6] 

By the late thirteenth century, the number of wandering perfecti had diminished. Many of the credentes continued to attend mass and receive confession, while holding varying beliefs and engaging in practices that the Church would condemn as heretical. However, their religious dissidence appears to have been informed more by local ideas and traditions, rather than any doctrinal consistency.^[7] 

This tendency for localism, however, served to undermined the clerical authority of the Catholic Church in the region, and despite the unlikelihood of these beliefs taking root beyond the south of France, the Church could not afford to have its religious authority questioned. Bernard Gui wrote about the Cathars in his Inquisitors Manual:

‘Moreover they talk to the laity of the evil lives of the clerks and prelates of the Roman Church, pointing out and setting forth their pride, cupidity, avarice, and uncleanness of life, and such other evils as they know. They invoke with their own interpretation and according to their abilities the authority of the Gospels and the Epistles against the condition of the prelates, churchmen, and monks, whom they call Pharisees and false prophets.’ [8]  

Gui’s apparent concern for scriptural purity is representative of the anxiety faced by the Church when confronted with heresy. This anxiety is also manifest in the inquisitor’s desire to portray heretical dissidence as a form of ‘counter-Church’, thereby exaggerating the threat in order to legitimise the extent of repression.

While some form of religious structure may have existed among an earlier Cathar elite, as evidenced by the 1167 Council of Saint-Felix, by the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the inquisitorial records do not report the existence of any hierarchical structure among the heretics.^[9] The following two case studies aim to illustrate the varying nature and extent of Cathar dissidence in the Languedoc.  

Catharism as an Expression of Rural Life: 

In December, 1320, Arnaud Cogul of Lordat, a small village in the Pyrenees and former Cathar stronghold, was brought before the Inquisition of Jacques Fournier in Palmiers on accusations of heresy. His confession begins: 

‘For about six years, I was of the belief that since God is good and simple, and there is not and can be no wickedness in him, that it was not he, God, who created the devil or the demons. And since I have cows and sheep and since sometimes the wolf carries off and eats these animals, I have believed during this time that God did not create an animal as wicked as the wolf.’ ^[10] 

Nothing is known of Arnaud outside of what has been written in Fournier’s records, but his confession clearly illustrates that Cathar belief in the Languedoc was heavily influenced by nature and rural life. The teaching of the ‘good men’ only combined with existing rural traditions and naturalism to conflict with the orthodox idea that the creation of certain natural and material elements could not be the work of a good God.^[11] 

Arnaud, who was a peasant farmer, would have not have understood the complexities of Roman theology, and so easily assumed a belief system that explained the world in way that was relevant to his life. He does not openly admit to a dualist belief system, but Fournier attributes it to him nonetheless, by saying that Arnaud ‘has held many propositions of the Manichaean sect, which leads one to believe that he is a believer of this sect’. Again, we witness the inquisitor’s preconception that the Cathar heresy encountered in the Languedoc was part of a much larger Manichaean sect. However, when Arnaud is questioned about how he came to believe in the heresy, he claims to have done so by his ‘own stupidity’, and that no one instructed him in it.

Of course Arnaud may not be telling the truth, as the heretical teachings of the notorious Authie brothers were popular in both Montaillou and Lordat.^[12] If his testimony is reliable, then it is probable to conclude that a significant portion of heretical beliefs in the rural Languedoc were a product of individual experience and peasant life. 

14th or 15th century depiction of people, possibly Cathars, being burned at the stake.

Catharism as an Expression of Dissent: 

Religious heterodoxy in the Languedoc did not only exist among rural village dwelling peasants. In Carcassonne, during the first few years of the fourteenth century, religious dissent took the shape of a major campaign against the Inquisition and its members.^[13] Some years prior, in 1286, the consuls of Carcassonne wrote a formal complaint to the formidable inquisitor Jean Galand, and the young King of France, Philip the Fair. The document painted the blackest possible picture of the Inquisition’s unjust persecution of the Cathars, and the conditions under which accused heretics suffered.  

‘For these prisoners [the accused Cathars] life is a torment and death. And thus coerced they say what is false is true, choosing to die once rather than to endure more torture. As a result of these false and coerced confessions not only do those making the confessions perish, but so do the innocent people named by them.’ ^[14] 

This written complaint is evidence that the fires of dissent against the Inquisition had been smouldering for some time, and when the storm broke in 1300-1301, it was not a Cathar who led the opposition, but a Franciscan friar named Bernard Delicieux (c.1261-1320).

There is no evidence to suppose that Delicieux approved of, or even sympathised with ‘Catharism’, but he believed that the inquisitorial process inevitably resulted in the conviction of innocent individuals, as claimed in the 1286 petition.^[15] Inquisitor Bernard Gui had no such scruples, writing that ‘Delicieux was the incendiarist of the evils’ and that, 'the pride of these people [of Carcassonne] rose and their wickedness raged to such an extent that the hereticals and their accomplices inflicted many injuries with words and blows on the brothers Preacher [members of the Dominican Inquisition].’^[16] 

The fear and unbearable conditions imposed by the Inquisition upon the inhabitants of Carcassonne incited many of the town’s elites to participate in the anti-inquisitorial movement, which would gain political momentum and eventually warrant the intervention of King Philip.^[17] This ‘multiplying of heretics’^[18], as Gui termed it, was a product, not of the ‘good men’ and their heretical preaching, but of the Inquisition itself.

Brother Bernard Delicieux, though going on to die in prison for his part in defending the accused Cathars of Carcassone, chose to reject the idea of ‘Catharism’ as a heresy and redefined it as a form of dissidence against the oppressive authority of the Catholic Inquisition. 

Conclusion:

While I believe that ‘Catharism’, as a heresy, was a very real phenomenon in the early fourteenth century Languedoc, as this article has shown, it was manifest in both rural beliefs surrounding nature, and in dissent against the ongoing persecution of the Inquisition. The grave threat that these irregular forms of ‘Catharism’ posed to religious orthodoxy was most certainly pre-conceived in the inquisitor’s mind, and subsequently exaggerated in order to justify a ‘religious war’ aimed at re-establishing the authority of the Church in the region.  

Endnotes:

^[1] Dan Jones, Powers and Thrones, (London: Bloomsbury, 2022), pp. 333-334. 

^[2] James Given, ‘The Inquisitors of Languedoc and the Medieval Technology of Power’, The American Historical Review, vol. 94, no.2 (April 1989), p. 340. 

^[3] Julien Thery-Astruc, ‘The Heretical Dissidence of the Good Men in the Albegeois (1276-1329): Localism and Resistance to Roman Clericalism’, Cathars in Question, ed. Antonio Sennis, (Boydell & Brewer, 2016), p. 85. 

^[4] John Arnold, Inquisition and Power, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001) p. 120. 

^[5] Ibid, p. 160. 

^[6] Emmanuel Le Roy Laudurie, Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294-1324, trans. Barbara Bray, (London: Penguin Books, 1990), p. viii. 

^[7] Julien Thery-Astruc, p. 96. 

^[8] Bernard Gui, ‘Inquisitor’s Manual: On the Albigensians’, trans. J.H. Robinson, Readings in European History, (Boston: Ginn, 1905), pp. 381-383. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/gui-cathars.asp  

^[9] Julien Thery-Astruc, p. 96. 

^[10] ‘Arnaud Cogul de Lordat’, Le Registre d'inquisition de Jacques Fournier, évêque de Parmiers (1318-1325), ed. Jean Duvernoy, (Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 1978), pp. 397-400. trans. Nancy P. Stork. https:// www.sjsu.edu/people/nancy.stork/jacquesfournier/Arnaud-Cogul-de-Lordat-FINAL.pdf  

^[11] Emmanuel Le Roy Laudurie, Montaillou, p. 322. 

^[12] Ibid, p. 320. 

^[13] James Given, ‘The Inquisitors of Languedoc and the Medieval Technology of Power’, p. 358. 

^[14] Cited in Stephen O’Shea, The Friar of Carcassonne, (London: Profile Books, 2012), p. 57.  

^[15] Karen Sullivan, The Inner Lives of Medieval Inquisitors, (University of Chicago Press, 2011), p. 154. 

^[16] Bernard Gui, ‘On the Foundations and Priors of the Preacher’s Convents in the Provinces of Toulouse and Provence’, Heresy and Inquisition in France 1200-1300, ed. John Arnold & Peter Biller, (Manchester University Press, 2017), p. 74. 

^[17] Thery-Astruc, p. 109. 

^[18] Bernard Gui, ‘On the Foundations and Priors of the Preacher’s Convents in the Provinces of Toulouse and Provence’, p. 82. 

Bibliography:

Primary Sources:

1. ‘Complaints of the City of Carcassonne against Brother Jean Galand, Inquisitor, 1285-86’.

2. Fournier, Jacques. ‘Confession of Arnuad Cogul de Lordat.’ Le registre d’inquisition de Jacques Fournier. Jean Duvernoy, ed. Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 1978. Translated by Nancy P. Stork. https://www.sjsu.edu/people/nancy.stork/jacquesfournier/Arnaud-Cogul-de-Lordat-FINAL.pdf

3. Gui, Bernard. ‘Inquisitor’s Manual: On the Albigensians.’ Readings in European History. Translated by J. H. Robinson. Boston: Ginn, 1905. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/gui-cathars.asp

4. Gui, Bernard. ‘On the Foundations and Priors of the Preacher’s Convents in the Provinces of Toulouse and Provence.’ Heresy and Inquisition in France, 1200-1300. John Arnold & Peter Biller, eds. Manchester University Press, 2017.

Secondary Sources:

1. Arnold, John. Inquisition and Power. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Given, James. ‘The Inquisitors of Languedoc and the Medieval Technology of Power.’ The American Historical Review. Volume 94, Issue 2. April 1989. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1866830

2. Jones, Dan. Powers and Thrones. London: Bloomsbury, 2022.

3. Le Roy Laudurie, Emmanuel. Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294-1324. Translated by Barbara Bray. London: Penguin Books, 1990.

4. O’Shea, Stephen. The Friar of Carcassonne: The Last Days of the Cathars. London: Profile Books, 2012.

5. Sennis, Antonio. ‘Questions about Cathars.’ Cathars in Question. Antonio Sennis, ed. Boydell & Brewer: York Medieval Press, 2016. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt1c3gx3j.4

6. Sullivan, Karen. The Inner Lives of Medieval Inquisitors. University of Chicago Press, 2011.

7. Thery-Astruc, Julien. ‘The Heretical Dissidence of the Good Men in the Albegeois (1276-1329): Localism and Resistance to Roman Clericalism.’ Cathars in Question.

8. Antonio Sennis, ed. Boydell & Brewer: York Medieval Press, 2016. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt1c3gx3j.7